Dubai International Airport has recorded its busiest ever first half of the year with 27.9 million passengers passing through the airport's terminals between January and June 2012.This is a massive 13.7% jump in airport’s passenger numbers compared to the first half of 2011 as more tourists than ever arrived to their Dubai holidays and business people visited the United Arab Emirate. Statistics reveal that passenger traffic to date reached 27,931,639 compared to 24,567,818 in the first half of 2011. “Our record first half had some interesting story lines, highlighted by the launch of 12 new routes, the addition of four new airlines and a surge in traffic on routes to Saudi Arabia, USA, Qatar and Australia,” explained Paul Griffiths, the Chief Executive of Dubai Airports. Dubai is one of the seven United Arab Emirates and it is a...

I think that most of us would say that budget air travel has become more stressful and not so "budget" in recent years. In fact I remember pre Ryanair, Easyjet and Germanwings when a flight to Aarhus with SAS was between £150 – £200 return, and by the time you load on your luggage, admin, web check-in charges, credit card fees, allocated seat, a snack on board your flight and the ridiculous and patronising fines put in place for forgetting or losing the print out for your boarding pass, we come fairly close to that figure anyway. In fact, quickly checking, a return flight to Aarhus on Ryanair on Aug 24th returning 27th (2012) with one bag came out at £218.78. But for me, the real difference between the likes of SAS or BA to the “budget” airlines...

It was reported today that the government had sought a High Court injunction against the proposed strike by border staff that was due to start tomorrow, just a day before the opening of the London Olympics, based on “procedural errors” in the PCS’s ballot. But PCS union leaders called the strike off with just 45 minutes to the start of the hearing. PCS leader Mark Serwotka said "major progress" had been made and claimed that 1100 jobs would be created, but the government claims they know nothing of it. Immigration minister Damian Green said in an interview on the BBC today he didn’t recognise those figures and said “that they break it down to 300 new jobs in the passport service, but at the moment there are 319 vacancies in the passport service and what was said in the...

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents Home Office staff among others, voted to strike for 24 hours the day before the official opening of the Olympic Games on Thursday 27 July. Olympic visitors to London could face long airport queues as border staff, and other Home Office personnel, vote to go on strike in a dispute over pay and cuts. In addition East Midlands train drivers plan to take industrial action over the Olympics, after a vote by Aslef union. The PCS said members would take other forms of industrial action on key dates over the games. Staff involved work for the UK Border Agency, the Identity and Passport Service and the Criminal Records Bureau. This ongoing dispute between the PCS and the Home Office over pay and job cuts resulted in PCS members...

London 2012 Olympic Route Network (ORN) During the Olympics the traffic situation will be different to normal. You could probably expect to add about 30 minutes to an hour onto a typical journey when travelling through or near an active Olympic event area. Dedicated road lanes for athletes and officials will be active along the (ORN) Olympic Route Network and (PRN) Paralympic Route Network. These lanes are only open to official accredited vehicles and not the general public. A penalty charge notice (fine) will be issued by means of CCTV monitoring if you make use of these lanes. Be warned it has been announced that driving in a Games Lane will result in a ￡130 penalty charge, in addition stopping or parking on the ORN will result in a ￡130 penalty charge and your vehicle may be towed away,...

The OFT (Office of Fair Trading) have announced today (5th July 2012) that following an OFT enforcement action, 12 airlines have had to agree to include debit card surcharges in the headline price. These charges have until now been held back until the end of the purchase process and usually after a raft of “optional extras” such as hold luggage (￡50 for 15kg on Ryanair), insurance, reserved seating, cabin bag, sports/musical/infant equipment, insurance and sometimes car hire and hotel options. It's no wonder that the OFT have stepped in. The airlines who were subject to an OFT consumer law investigation and have now agreed to change their practices are Aer Lingus, BMI Baby, Eastern Airways, easyJet, Flybe, German Wings, Jet2, Lufthansa, Ryanair, Thomas Cook, Thomson (TUI) and Wizz Air. The OFT believe that the debit card is...